fontburger.comthe blog of christina olivas //

I’m about to upgrade my Dropbox for the second time and I want to tell you all, if you’re not using the file syncing tool you’re missing out on a great service.

Dropbox allows you to store files and folders across all of your computers and mobile devices. It is so great to not have to carry around my external hard drive everywhere. When I’m working on a file I can save the file on my work computer, then go home and open it on my laptop. An internet connection is all you need to sync and you install a dropbox file right in your Finder.

I would have loved to have a dropbox in college, would have been so much easier than organizing files on different USB drives.

You can get 2GB of Dropbox for free, so check out the features and start using a tool you’ll never know how you lived without.

This is one for all the university goers out there.

Take advantage of your school’s free resources. For me this meant volleyball with strangers who quickly became friends, therapy sessions with grad students, meditation class, computer labs, writing centers and lots of free food at events.

You can find at least one event, between classes, where you can stop by and get some free grub. This might not be true for all schools, buy at NMSU I belonged to so many email lists that I could find free food at least twice a week. It was great for a broke kid like me. So add yourself to email lists and programs to find out which campus events are going on near by.

I went to free therapy sessions my last semester, but I wish I would have taken advantage of the free service sooner. It was a good experience for me and it really helped to talk about my life and stress. Find out if your school provides this service and try a few sessions.

I’m sure there are many more free services and resources you can take advantage of, so go find them! You’re only a broke student for so long… and then you’re just broke.

Stay thirsty my friends.

Hey everyone! My value meals are starting to build up in my journal so it’s time to get them posted.

Since I got so many written down already I’m going to start making these value meals quick and to the point. They’re good info that don’t need much detail to get the message across, so it seemed like a good plan.

All right then…Numero Dos!

Create folders, and bookmark useful links

A little something I have learned from the professionals. This is great way to organize links and refer to them quickly later. Peeps are constantly tweeting interesting and useful links that you want to keep handy. I keep bookmarks for tutorials, free fonts, design inspiration, blogs, books and more. Definitely something I would recommend every designer should do. You’ll appreciate always having links to reference if you ever need them.

Let me know how you save links and why you find it useful?

Bye for now, Christina

Hey Everyone! Fontburger here. Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog! Be sure to stop by my about page if you want to get to know a little more about me.

It has become my mission to help other students just getting into design school with any questions they may have. I want to do this because I wish I would have discovered some kind of resource to go to when i first entered college. As I mentioned before I have designer friends, online and in life, who offer their advice to me and I am very grateful for that. It really inspires me and make me feel like I’m not alone in this sometimes tough design world.

Recently I was thinking what would be the best way to provide some advice to design students. After writing a list of some of the advice I thought would be appropriate, I quickly realized that there is so much I want to share that I’m going to have to break them up into a series of posts. I think posting one each week or so is the best way to keep my thoughts organized and to hopefully get everyone involved in a discussion on a topic and share their thoughts.

Lastly I had to come up with a name for this series of blogs. Just calling it Student Advice 1, 2, and so on wouldn’t fit my fontburger style. While writing this first post I kept telling myself that I wanted my words to be “valuable” information for other students.

So I’m putting these posts into a Value Meal of deliciousness.

So here it goes…Value Meal No. 1

Classroom Relationships

When you first begin a design program at a college or university the group of students who you have in a few introductory design classes will most likely be the same group of students who you will continue to have classes with. So find those students in class who you feel share the same passion or enthusiasm for learning design as you do and get to know them. It’s great to have those students around you who are partaking in the same journey and will influence you in a positive way. Friends you can grow with, who motivate you, and whom you can learn from.

The first step toward finding the best classmates starts with you. If you are optimistic and helpful, you’ll attract students who are the same.

In developing these relationships with other students you’ll feel more comfortable taking criticism from them and they’ll feel more comfortable giving you criticism as well. You can ask each other questions and share information in and out of the classroom.

In my experience I have developed a close relationship with a group of classmates who are all talented designers. Our friendship goes beyond the classroom and it’s awesome to share a common passion and to be able to share design ideas and resources.

It’s also good to make those relationships with classmates because surviving an art program means a lot of late night studio time. Only your fellow art students understand what it means to pull an all-nighter in the “fill in the blank” room with plenty of energy drinks at hand.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “You are who you hang with.” So hang with those you respect and filter out those you do not.

Much Love

Christina